The invention relates to a floor covering and a method of manufacturing it in which, more particularly, a continuous bottom layer of a polymeric material penetrates apertures distributed in a top layer.
German patent application DOS 21 03 262 shows a top layer, initially continuous, laid on a bottom layer and pressed together into depressions in the press platens. This produces elevations on the top layer surface of the floor covering. These make it possible to remove the top layer completely by selective machining, thus exposing the bottom layer, which is of a contrasting color. More extensive machining results in a two-color surface that is free of elevations, but has traces of the machining where the original elevations were removed. In those spots, the floor covering is more vulnerable to soiling than elsewhere.
In an embodiment wherein the top layer and the bottom layer are made of a polymeric material such as rubber, the surface areas which have not been machined will, in contrast to the machined areas, have a so-called press or vulcanization skin, and hence a different abrasion resistance, too. Wear then results in the formation of undesirable unevenness.
The coloring and any relief-like texturing of the surface of a floor covering of this type also fully coincide with each other as a result of the manufacturing technique. This is not altogether satisfactory since architectural considerations often call for these to be independent of each other, as, for example, when the surface of the floor covering is to be given a predetermined color pattern for use as an advertising medium, without detracting from its antislip or wear-resisting relief.